"Recent attacks on the veracity of the Book of Mormon based on DNA evidence are ill considered. Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin. The scientific issues relating to DNA, however, are numerous and complex."

Note that the truly complex issue is much deeper than DNA. Are these people who migrated from Asia and left descendants who are called “American Indian”, are they human?

Give it some thought. Human is considered to be the race from Adam and Eve. It is not a far stretch to imagine that the LDS position at this time considers the American Indian to be from a race other than biblical, a race much older than the period from the book of Genesis, and not from Adam and Eve.

How is this newsroom statement to be understood concerning LDS scriptural references to Adam-ondi-Ahman?

D&C 107:53Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing.

1835

D&C 116:1Spring Hill is named by the Lord Adam-ondi-Ahman, because, said he, it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the prophet.

May 19, 1838

Spring Hill is in Daviess County, Missouri. The LDS writings in the Doctrine and Covenants claim that Adam was supposedly at this location before he died, and that he will return to it in the last days (Daniel 7:9).

LDS teachings are that Eden was in Missouri. See LDS Hymn number 49, “Adam-ondi-Ahman”. This was included in the first LDS hymnbook in 1835 and is still sung today.

D&C 27:11 (August 1830) states that Adam was the father of all. D&C 84:16 (September 22 and 23, 1832) says he was the first man. How are pre-adamic migrations into America reconciled with words that are supposed to be from Jesus Christ as written in the Doctrine and Covenants?

The racial impact of this change is chilling. Biblical origins of the aborigines of Australia have been debated since their discovery, but the LDS held a unique stance with the inhabitants of the Americas. This is now altered.

The Change was Reported in the LDS Owned Newspaper

See the Deseret News, November 8, 2007, titled: “Debate renewed with change in Book of Mormon introduction”, by Carrie A. Moore.

LDS Church spokesman Mark Tuttle was quoted that the change: “takes into account details of Book of Mormon demography which are not known”

LDS scholar John L. Sorenson was quoted:

“it eliminates a certain minor embarrassment in the use of language, that’s all”

“I don’t think it means very much for anyone”

“The assumptions may have been and may be in the minds of some that the previous phrasing had substance to it”.

Two Historical Challenges To Sorenson’s Words

1. What about Joseph Smith’s own words regarding the western tribes, in his January 4, 1833 letter to N. E. Seaton, an editor of a Rochester Newspaper? (See History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Volume I, Introduction by B. H. Roberts, Published by the Church, Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1902, page 315)

“The Book of Mormon is a record of the fore fathers of our western tribes of Indians...

By it we learn that our western tribes of Indians are descendants from that of Joseph that was sold into Egypt, and that the land America is a promised land unto them ...

The city of Zion, spoken of by David, in the one hundred and first Psalm, will be built upon the land of America”

The entire letter was reprinted in the Times and Seasons, November 15, 1844.

Sorenson is lying about “assumptions” in the “minds of some”. Those who know the LDS historical writings are not assuming. Sorenson’s use of his scholarly credibility to make claims which will become accepted, is a method used throughout history by revisionists.

The LDS maintain that Jesus Christ leads their church. It is becoming obvious that scholars using revisionism schemes are influencing the LDS prophet and apostles.

2. What about the Savior’s words through LDS revelation, printed in the Doctrine and Covenants, 28th section, concerning Oliver Cowdery’s first mission to the Lamanites?

Verse 8: “And now, behold, I say unto you that you shall go unto the Lamanites and preach my gospel unto them”Verse 9: “And now, behold, I say unto you that it is not revealed, and no man knoweth where the city Zion shall be built, but it shall be given hereafter. Behold, I say unto you that it shall be on the borders by the Lamanites”.

September, 1830

The city Zion was later identified in D&C 57 to be built in Missouri. Beyond that to the west was Indian country. “The borders by the Lamanites” clearly means that the Lamanites were the American Indian west of Missouri. D&C 57:4 even identifies the American Indian as being Jew, in regards to the line separating Indian country from the edge of the United States.

D&C 57:1 Hearken, O ye elders of my church, saith the Lord your God, who have assembled yourselves together, according to my commandments, in this land, which is the land of Missouri, which is the land which I have appointed and consecrated for the gathering of the saints.2 Wherefore, this is the land of promise, and the place for the city of Zion.3 And thus saith the Lord your God, if you will receive wisdom here is wisdom. Behold, the place which is now called Independence is the center place; and a spot for the temple is lying westward, upon a lot which is not far from the courthouse.4 Wherefore, it is wisdom that the land should be purchased by the saints, and also every tract lying westward, even unto the line running directly between Jew and Gentile;5 And also every tract bordering by the prairies, inasmuch as my disciples are enabled to buy lands. Behold, this is wisdom, that they may obtain it for an everlasting inheritance.

July 20, 1831

Note also that D&C 57:1 makes it clear that these are the words of Jesus Christ.

Oliver’s first mission, in 1831, crossed into what is today Kansas, on the western border of Missouri. He did not go to Meso-America. (See History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Volume I, Introduction by B. H. Roberts, Published by the Church, Deseret News, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1902, pages 182 to 185)

Oliver Cowdery taught the Delaware tribe (relocated under the Indian Removal Act of 1830), creating excitement, which caused the Department of Indian Affairs to become concerned. Would problems arise with the American Indian on the western frontier border of the United States? With the Florida Seminole removal problem at that time, this became a significant factor in the Missouri persecutions.(Also in the above source was the first mention to Joseph Smith of the Navajo, a tribe which played a substantial part of Spencer W. Kimball’s life work in the 20th century. Haplogroup x is found in the Navajo).

Official LDS Denial and Deception

Published explanations of the one word change and the LDS public affairs releases never mention D&C 28, or Joseph Smith’s own words, or Oliver Cowdery’s mission, or Adam-ondi-Ahman.

The Real Problem

Does the change identify that two-legged beings were in the Americas long before the Book of Mormon fictional events or even the Biblical account in Genesis, and these creatures survived the flood, as presumed with the haplogroup x DNA signature found in living people of American Indian tribes?

“Nothing in the Book of Mormon precludes migration into the Americas by peoples of Asiatic origin”. Compare this with the words in Ether Chapter 13:

2 ... after the waters had receded from off the face of this land it became a choice land above all other lands, a chosen land of the Lord; wherefore the Lord would have that all men should serve him who dwell upon the face thereof;

3 And that it was the place of the New Jerusalem, which should come down out of heaven, and the holy sanctuary of the Lord.

LDS Officials Contradict Their Own Scriptures

Ether Chapter 13 and D&C 28 both reference the American inhabitants (who clearly were not co-adamites in these LDS scriptures). Both also identify the New Jerusalem (City of Zion). See also the 10th Article of Faith.

Also, in Ether it is clearly stated that the flood destroyed all mankind in the Americas, leaving it a choice land for the righteous. How could co-adamites have survived the flood?

According to these passages in Ether, all people in America found by Europeans had to have been descended from Noah, which the Book of Mormon already accounts for. The first people from Noah into America were the Jaredites, followed much later by those from Abraham’s seed, being Lehi’s family, and the Mulekites. Ice age migrants from Asia are clearly not descendants of Noah, being far earlier than the Biblical chronology.

The one word change was unnecessary, except to confirm that science is correct with the ice-age migration, the time period when it occurred, and that the flood was not universal.

The universality of the flood has been a subject of debate for centuries. Many biblical scholars have argued that it was an isolated event in Mesopotamia. The unique LDS stance has been that the flood was an event affecting the North American continent, as this was where Eden was located and where the first man originated. The problem now is if the flood were not universal, how did Noah get from America to the Old World?

Sorenson’s words: “it eliminates a certain minor embarrassment” formulate a new disgrace: contemporary LDS leaders are unable to explain scriptural inconsistencies and nineteenth century LDS writings with this one-word-change.

The LDS hierarchy has contradicted the Book of Mormon writings of the flood covering the Americas. A regional flood in the old world is much easier to accommodate than an American flood, which would have carried the ark to the old world. Also disregarded is the Doctrine and Covenants, which is supposedly the Lord’s words, identifying the American Indian in 1830 as being the descendants from the people of the Book of Mormon.

If the ancestors of the American Indian survived the flood, but Ether states that all men were destroyed on the American continent, then do the LDS scientist resolve this by reasoning that these hominids were not mankind? This makes the American Indian something less than human, not being the seed of Adam and Eve. The logic process occurring here is deplorable.

The First Presidency Position on Pre and Co-adamites.

The one word change can be more fully understood by researching the 1931 First Presidency memo regarding the arguments between the apostles Joseph Fielding Smith and B. H. Roberts, with James Talmage’s remarks. (For further study see the BYU evolution packet and the writings of BYU Professor Duane Jeffery, including his “Seers, Savants and Evolution: The Uncomfortable Interface”).

The First Presidency has never taken a position denying the existence of pre and co-adamites. The one-word-change now establishes an official First Presidency position acknowledging their existence.

1931 First Presidency Memo:

The statement made by Elder Smith that the existence of pre-Adamites is not a doctrine of the church is true. It is just as true that the statement: “There were not pre-Adamites upon the earth,” is not a doctrine of the Church. Neither side of the controversy has been accepted as a doctrine at all.

Both parties make the scripture and the statements of men who have been prominent in the affairs of the Church the basis of their contention; neither has produced definite proof in support of his views.

James Talmage believed in pre-adamites, but did not consider them human.

“I do not regard Adam as related to – certainly not as descended from – the Neanderthal, the Cro-Magnon, the Peking or the Piltdown man”. (The Earth and Man, Deseret News, November 21, 1931)Consider the ice-age cave paintings found in Spain and France. Ancient artists painted figures of large mammals that are now extinct, such as the wooly rhinoceros, the mammoth and wooly bison. In the mind of Talmage, the hands that made this art were not human as those from Adam and Eve’s descendants are. With the DNA studies of the late 20th century, science now investigates living individuals with ties to pre-biblical millenniums. Concerning the American Indian, they are outside of the Judeo-Christian writings as much so as in 1655 when Isaac Le Peyrere first proposed the pre-adamite idea to account for two-legged creatures inhabiting the lands of the Americas which had been unknown to the authors of the books of the Bible.

The First Presidency Has Altered Basic LDS Teachings

The one-word-change brings a significant shift in the LDS teachings, and contradicts the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith’s revelations and the writings of early leaders.

Sorenson’s Meso-American setting for the Book of Mormon might appeal to the weak-minded folks, but what does this say about the North American Indian? It excludes them from being Book of Mormon people because of haplogroup x DNA, an exclusion now officially sanctioned by the highest LDS leaders through this one-word-change.

The DNA debate creates an identifying marker on who is pre/co-adamite, because haplogroup x in the Western Hemisphere is almost entirely restricted to North America, and is not found in Mexico or Central America. Most LDS believe the Book of Mormon events took place in Meso-America.

The LDS official statements now indicate that the American Indian descends from a race other than Adam and Eve. These individuals are from hominids that survived the flood.

True revisionism would require admitting that the LDS religion is a hoax and that all two-legged are from ancient hominid ancestors, with Adam and Eve being only a myth. The only other option is deception and lies. The outcome of this dishonesty leads to racism, just as occurred in the 19th century with the use of this pre-adamite doctrine.

The Pre-adamite Theory and Racism

The theory of pre-adamites, which originated in 1655 to explain the existence of people in the Americas, was much more brutal to the American Indian than to the Blacks in regards to the latter’s treatment as slaves. For the former it justified murder of women and children, massacre, genocide, sterilization, etc. Gold wealth was used for white children’s schools while extermination orders were given to remove the aboriginal problem. (Colorado is infamous for this, as well as its elected representatives’ influence on excluding the American Indian from the fourteenth amendment of the U.S. Constitution.) Under treaties designating Indian Territory, various tribes were the legal owners of the lands where gold mines were found. No new treaties were made to acquire these lands; they were simply taken. Dehumanization of a people always becomes necessary to appease the conscience of murderers. The pre-adamite theory makes an effective tool to do this, by giving the illusion of God’s approval because the two-legged being slaughtered are not even from Adam. The damnable LDS apologetics who promote this nauseating doctrine are either ignorant of historical reality, or are as much murderers in their hearts as those whites who justified it in the nineteenth century.

Craniometry was a nineteenth century research, and those involved carried their influence to State and Federal Government officials concerning American Indian policy. Skull characteristics supposedly identified lower and higher two-legged creatures. Today this is called scientific racism and is now recognized for the falsehood that it is.

"The differences between the various races of men are fundamental differences in intellectual capacity, as well as in physical conformation”.

This theory, applied to races, led to numerous publications by many authors, writings that are still used today by the white supremacy movements.

Hitler’s ideas were influenced by Arthur De Gobineau’s book “The Inequality of Human Races”. Gobineau maintained that Adam was the ancestor of only the white race. The Holocaust is a matter of history, but even now racist revisionists are attempting to deny that it occurred.

Why would a church which claims to have Jesus Christ at it’s head, and which declares an ability to receive modern revelation, why would it even delve into such a sickness of thought which has brought nothing but death and suffering to two-legged life on this rock we call earth? DNA studies coupled with pre and co-adamite beliefs are nothing more than the same old racism returning.

Just as with Gobineau’s writings of Adam being only one (but the most special) of many other two legged creatures, the following was in a BYU textbook in the early 1980s:

“Perhaps with Adam came a general enlightenment of man in the Near East, which accounts for the shift in cultural evolution...”Science and Religion: Toward a More Useful Dialogue, Volume II, Paladin House Publishers, Geneva, Illinois, 1979, Page 208

Note that LDS owned Brigham Young University approved this book, which ignored the revelations in D&C 107:53 concerning Adam-ondi-Ahman. Missouri is clearly identified by Jesus Christ in D&C 116. How did Adam and his seed from Missouri bring a general enlightenment of man in the Near East?

LDS apologetics even at this time maintain that the pre-adamite theory is a means to resolve science and religion. This thinking is an illness and is not an original idea to the LDS. Dominick McCausland used this theory in the same way. He further preached that the "Caucasian" race would eventually exterminate all others. BYU and other professors, as well as the apologetics, walk on very racist and dangerous ground. First Presidency approval of the word change shows official support for these deluded LDS scholars.

Racism Has Returned.

It occurs with denial, lying, and open contradiction to previous LDS prophets and revelations. Nevertheless, the LDS topmost leadership has done it. They explicate that the American Indian is of a race other than from Adam. Intelligent reasoning can lead to nothing else but that the First Presidency openly sports racism. LDS claims to the contrary are lies.

Early writings of LDS leaders stated that Jesus Christ was married, had children, and that Joseph Smith and other prophets were descended from him.

“For I tell you it is the chosen of God, the seed of the blessed, that shall be gathered. I do not despise to be called ... a son, a child of the Savior, if he had Mary, and Martha, and several others, as wives...”

Page 83:

“That seed has had its influence upon the chosen of God in the last days”.

It is clear that the LDS leaders identify three significant races on earth, now bolstered further by this one-word-change:

1. The most special are those who propose their own biological lineage to be through Jesus Christ directly to God the Father, a race of almost immortal men.

2. Next is the race from Adam and Eve, those who are favored by God the Father, being created in his own image and given souls.

3. The last race is from evolution, and while deserving of the gospel and god’s love, it is a race not as special.

Anyone who cannot admit that this is plainly supremacist racism is either in severe denial, lying, or is simply and utterly unwise.

Other Factors Contributing to Supremacist Undertakings

LDS scholars demonstrate no interest in American Indian history, whether recent or of the distant past. There is no corresponding relationship of the American Indian studies with the Book of Mormon fictions. The attitude among many LDS members is that the Book of Mormon is a more accurate history of the ancient Americas than the aboriginal people know about themselves. This notion has become a conundrum now with the shift away from the North American tribes.

Haplogroup x, integrated with the dominant theory of Meso-America Book of Mormon geography, drives a disregard for the American Indian even more so. The very people that the Doctrine and Covenants identifies in section 28 are of little or no academic interest.

Joseph Smith’s writings of the Indian Removal Act of 1830 clearly associated it with the gathering of Israel (including the American Indian as being descended through the house of Joseph). This federal legislation was a policy to relocate American Indian tribes to the west of the Mississippi. None of these events involved Meso-America.

Meso-American theorists hold Mayan and Aztec calendar writings as proof of an advanced race, and some go so far as to declare that no North American people kept a calendar at all. This of course is a lie, as anyone familiar with the research of Garrick Mallery understands. However, even if LDS scholars are knowledgeable of the winter-counts, they discredit them on the grounds that these do not identify Book of Mormon stories. This is an absurd position to take, considering that the Mayan and Aztec records likewise do not correspond with any Book of Mormon events.

In short, the LDS scholars impose scientific racism into the region of Meso-America, while lying about the developmental histories of those in the U.S. boundaries. All this is accomplished with writings of fallacy, showing no basis of comparison to the real histories of either group of people. Also disregarded is the Doctrine and Covenants, which supposedly boasts the words of Jesus Christ himself.

LDS Revisionism

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 was:“An Act to provide for an exchange of lands with the Indians residing in any of the states or territories, and for their removal west of the river Mississippi”.Advocates of the Meso-American geography disregard Joseph Smith’s own words about this United States Congressional legislation:

The Evening and Morning Star, September, 1832. No. 4“Notwithstanding the Indians may doubt, or even fear the policy of the government of the United States, in gathering and planting them in one place, &c.-they may be assured, that the object is good...”

The Evening and Morning Star, December 1832, No. 7“It is not only gratifying, but almost marvelous, to witness the gathering of the Indians. The work has been going on for some time, and these remnants of Joseph gather by hundreds and settle west of the Missouri, and Arkansas. And is not this scripture fulfilling...?”

The Evening and Morning Star, January 1833, No. 8“The United States continue to buy the land of Joseph, and become nursing fathers unto his children…What a beauty it is to see the prophecies fulfilling so exactly.”The one-word-change to the Book of Mormon introduction, and LDS emphasis on Meso-America, coupled with the fact that haplogroup x is not found south of the border in “Book of Mormon lands”, encompass this revisionism. Joseph Smith, the first LDS prophet, is disregarded, and LDS revelations contained in the Doctrine and Covenants, words that until now have been considered to be from the voice of the Lord, are written off and ignored.

A Problem From the Other Direction

Problems occur when overzealous members promote the idea of the American Indian as being the very people the Book of Mormon says. One example occurred in 2003 with Black Hills State College, in Spearfish South Dakota. Len Austin, an assistant professor of Education and also a member of the LDS faith, had authored a textbook for use in an educational psychology course. It had to be pulled, because it falsely portrayed the American Indians’ own spiritual beliefs to be the same as the LDS teachings. This was offensive to tribal members, who know themselves better than those LDS scholars who attempt to write on subjects they do not understand.The dilemma with the one-word-change, and, the American Indian no longer being regarded by Mormons as they once were, does not mean that they should again be looked upon with the Book of Mormon fictional approach. Anything outside of reality from either direction is harmful. However, the current issue with the one-word-change is of greatest injury, as this supposes a select group (haplogroup x) to be of a race not from Adam and Eve.

Final Thoughts

The dispute between Joseph Fielding Smith, Brigham Henry Roberts and James Talmage, and the associated First Presidency memo all occurred before World War II. At the end of that war, the newly formed United Nations addressed racism. In the opening lines of Unesco’s “The Race Question”:

“The importance which the problem of race has acquired in the modern world scarcely needs to be pointed out. Mankind will not soon forget the injustices and crimes which give such tragic overtones to the word “race”. It was inevitable that Unesco should take a position in a controversy so closely linked not only with its goals but also with its very nature. For, like war, the problem of race which directly affects millions of human lives and causes countless conflicts has its roots “in the minds of men”. The preamble of Unesco’s Constitution, adopted in 1945, specifically named racism as one of the social evils which the new Organization was called upon to combat. Moreover, the Constitution declares that “the great and terrible war which has now ended was a war made possible by the denial of the democratic principles of the dignity, equality and mutual respect of men, and by the propagation, in their place, through ignorance and prejudice, of the doctrine of inequality of men and races”.

The one-word-change to the Introduction of the Book of Mormon, approved by the First Presidency, which has a counselor from Germany, together with the controversy over proxy baptisms for Holocaust Jews, makes obvious the LDS xenophobic leadership and its members. The change establishes a doctrine of inequality by promoting that not all are from Adam and Eve, and is certainly propagated based on ignorance of the words of Joseph Smith, and with a disregard for the LDS scriptures. Such a change betrays the underlying prejudice. This did not come from God. No LDS prophet received revelation concerning the introduction to the Book of Mormon. The alteration is nothing more than the words of man, written by individuals with racist sentiments, men who refuse to acknowledge writings attributed to words of deity.

How many U.S. citizens would openly elect or support a political leader with affiliations to known racist organizations? And yet many LDS believe that through Mormons, the U.S. constitution will be saved.

Most LDS followers are convinced that the people of Mexico and Central America are the children of Lehi. Gordon B. Hinkley had stated this very thing at temple dedications south of the United States border. With current political issues surrounding illegal immigration into the U.S., why would the LDS leadership use religion on those south of the border to define them as a special race? Isn’t it bad enough that the fourteenth amendment excludes (See Elk v Wilkins) the American Indian from citizenship, even now? Their citizenship is from a legislative act of 1924, while children of illegal immigrants become constitutional citizens by birth. And in this political setting, white Mormons now amuse themselves with ideas of adamites descended through Lehi as opposed to co-adamites labeled with the unique DNA of haplogroup x. All of this comes from works of fiction, steeped in racism, coupled with genetic science and a DNA signature being used to separate human beings.

“In the Bullshit Department, a businessman can't hold a candle to a General Authority. Cause I gotta tell you the truth, folks. When it comes to bullshit, big-time, major league bullshit, you have to stand in awe of the all-time champion of false promises and exaggerated claims, the Mormons. No contest. No contest. The Mormons. The Mormons easily have the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it”.Adapted from George Carlin

Nineteenth century cranial studies might now be antiquated, but the LDS are reviving the same evil, with the use of DNA and their mythical Book of Mormon lands.

Often the apologetics are excused with “it is their opinions only”, but with this one-word-change, an official position of the LDS church has been made. Coupled with the First Presidency memo of 1931, the pre and co-adamite question is now formally addressed once again by the LDS leadership, with an authoritative stance currently in support of races other than from Adam and Eve. (This position is opposite that of Joseph Fielding Smith, who became an LDS prophet after the dispute with Roberts and Talmage.)

Conclusion

The past events in the LDS church concerning Blacks and the priesthood brought many accusations of racism.

Previous teachings of white being the color of the Nephites and the dark skin that of the Lamanites likewise brought charges of racism.

Some past LDS leaders expected the American Indian to become white as they became faithful members of the LDS church.

Many LDS priesthood authorities have preached against interracial marriages.

This one-word-change, and the significance of it, now makes a case of racism greater than any of the previous allegations. Meso-American geographical apologetics are damned liars. So are the LDS leaders who sustain men’s words and ignore that all humans are equal to each other. God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). LDS leaders and members who entertain themselves with an inequality of races should repent (3 Nephi 20:15-17, 28). This Book of Mormon one-word-change is merely writing from human hands, and stands in open contradiction to manuscripts considered to be the word of God.

Any church that introduces racism, and justifies it in the name of deity, then throws away portions of its own scriptures and writings of its founding leader, to further the idea of an inequality among humans, such a church certainly strengthens the position of the atheist (that no religion is real). It is odd that many LDS apologetics currently use the philosophy of Thomas Kuhn, an atheist, to argue for the truth of their religion. Such is the irrational arrogance and foolishness of more than a few LDS scholars. Some of these apologetics argue that their influence persuaded the LDS membership to accept the black priesthood issue, yet at this time an inequality of races concerning the American Indian is being promoted. This is unequivocally sheer hypocrisy.

Note: The term “American Indian” is used in this writing rather than “Native American”. The word choice is to clarify only those tribes found within the borders of the lower forty-eight states. The term “Native American” includes the Eskimo and Pacific Islanders, whose haplogroups are not x.